How We Unscarred Our Kids

"I told you so" moments are the worst, especially when I am telling them to myself. There are times when Dr. Romance and I *GASP* make questionable decisions for our kids. Against our initial instincts, we took our children to a family funeral. They were amongst cousins their same age. And really, they behaved beautifully and were fascinated by the formality of a Catholic mass. They loved the chimes, the priests' robes, and the incense. They had never been to a Catholic church. They were impressed by so much stained glass and seemed immune to the funeral. It was as happy as a funeral can get: not many tears.

The fuzzy problem was that this was their first "death experience." For months, they asked so many questions about death and the finality of earthly existence. I worried that I had scarred them forever by taking them to a funeral.

This Easter we purposed to tell the truth about death. We celebrated the death of Jesus and his resurrection. And my eyes brimmed with tears when my Middle Man woke up and said, "Mommy, I had a dream. It was about the tomb, but I wasn't scared!" Our Easter was full of rebirth, full of life, full of celebration.

The night before Easter we made Resurrection cookies. As we added each ingredient, we took our time and explained exactly why celebrate, why we beat the pecans like Roman soldiers, why we add vinegar, salt, eggs, and finally the sweetness of the sugar. Because death is not the end for us!

And the children sealed the "tomb" or oven, with masking tape. The next morning they jumped on our bed ready to open the tomb. Inside they found their cookies, hollow, just as the women found Jesus' tomb on Easter morning.

Our day was rich with celebration and more talk of how death is not the end for us. We spoke the names and the stories of those we know we will see again. Now, I brush away the thoughts of scarring my children for life, and take confidence that we are teaching them not only about death, but about life!

And though we are in Massachusetts without family, and have lived much life away from family, we seem never alone on holidays. Friends of relatives arrived. They arrived strangers, and left our Easter table like family.